When a good heavy metal band encompasses all of the necessary and key elements to craft a stellar piece of music in a collective as Sleepy Hollow has done with its latest record Skull 13 you just know right from the first notes that something magical is about to happen within the span of the next hour. Aside from a 2001 compilation, the Jersey boys haven’t put out a full-length since 1991’s self-titled opus, so to say this was long overdue is a grand understatement.

Bob Mitchell’s vocals are, along with James Rivera and Riley from Steelwing, among the best in the business today. There is no contrived forcing of the point; the amazing power of the high vocal has been mantled and passed off by the likes of Rob Halford and Klaus Meine to a willing and capable crop. As a longtime fan of Attacker, Mitchell has always provided me with some of metal’s finer moments, and while that band has been laid to rest for Mitchell his dedication to the movement is evident in every falsetto he effortlessly belts forth like a wartime command. Each song on this album has that signature scream that can just as soon fill the room as shatter your frontal lobe. From the first track “Death of a Horseman” to the last song in “Midnight” Bob Mitchell carves you up and disseminates parts of you long the ridge way, and by the record’s end you’ll be thanking him for the effort. 

The Skull 13 record is one of the traditional medium’s most solid efforts by way of attentive song structure, simple-yet-effective lyrical issuance, and a genuine knowledge of just what to bring and how to bring it. Guitarist Steve Stegg has a rich and familiar tone that is part-and-parcel to the Sleepy Hollow sound, crunching embryonic riffs when needed and assembling obedient notes when warranted. Without too much of a good thing in regards to flash and pomp, Stegg lays the foundation and tramples over these tracks with a basic formula staunchly guarded from the perils and pratfalls of typicality and bland expectancy; while you won’t find any shredding here, which is all too common today anyway, you will be properly tapped in all the proper points with some serious guitar work. The overall theme in Sleepy Hollow’s sound is the mid-range tonal voraciousness for sonic supremacy over all pretenders and late-comers. The addition of bassist Mike LePond from Symphony X adds a thicker consistency to the sound as well (especially evident in “Inquisition”), providing a true power metal flair to an already solid unit. Tommy Wassman’s drumming is a good backbone for already potent music, and when a band fires on all pistons it’s always a much more enjoyable journey through an album. “Facemelter” is pretty much the band’s new anthem if for no other reason that it is just an ugly venture into some of the densest metal music available; the song takes your neck and simply shakes you around like a rag doll void of spinal comforts. I love how these guys just come out of the gate with one goal in mind: to take you to places unknown or untouched and deliver you into the chasm of some tempestuous music crafted expertly and with every imaginable ounce of integrity.      

What makes Sleepy Hollow so viable some two decades after the initial debut is the fact that elapsed time, usually a terminal disease, lends no decrepit hand of doom to the band; it’s almost as if there has been no discernible absence in Skull 13 due in large part to pure heavy metal music leading the lighted way. Mitchell’s voice has only gotten stronger over the years; one listen to “Eic (The Legend Retold)” lets you know there are no shortcuts taken by him or the rest of the band. The entire album is a lesson in well-structured, honest metal music that takes this current run of traditional sound and flips it on its backside. The very distinct Judas Priest feel in “Eic…” tells the tale of a local band making good with its integrity and influences completely intact, offering no quarter or excuses, as if any were needed.

It may have been one long wait, but the interim has managed to produce something magical and all-consuming if your metal is heavy and unrelenting.

TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  Death of the Horseman
2.  Facemelter
3.  Black Passage
4.  Bleed Steel
5.  Rear Window
6.  Inquisition
7.  Eic (The Legend Retold)
8.  Eternal Bridge
9.  Misery Waltz
10.  Spiral Effect
11.  Midnight

Total playing time:  57:24

Release Date: March 23, 2012
Label: Pure Steel Records

Sleepy Hollow - Skull 13

Reviewer: Chris

April 3, 2012